Self-image Resilience and Dissonance: The Role of Affirmational Resources

It was predicted that high self-esteem Ss (HSEs) would rationalize an esteem-threatening decision less than low self-esteem Ss (LSEs), because HSEs presumably had more favorable self-concepts with which to affirm, and thus repair, their overall sense of self-integrity. This prediction was supported in 2 experiments within the "free-choice" dissonance paradigm—one that manipulated self-esteem through personality feedback and the other that varied it through selection of HSEs and LSEs, but only when Ss were made to focus on their self-concepts. A 3rd experiment countered an alternative explanation of the results in terms of mood effects that may have accompanied the experimental manipulations. The results were discussed in terms of the following: (a) their support for a resources theory of individual differences in resilience to self-image threats—an extension of self-affirmation theory, (b) their implications for self-esteem functioning, and (c) their implications for the continuing debate over self-enhancement versus self-consistency motivation. It is an everyday observance that some people are more resilient to self-image threat than others, that is, their perception of self-adequacy, and the emotions that vary with it, are more impervious to self-image-threatening events. We all fluctuate in this respect, being more resilient in some settings than in others, or at some times more than at others, but there do seem to be reliable individual differences in this capacity (Spencer, Josephs, & Steele, in press). At any rate, it is a purpose of the present research to test whether this is so, whether such differences exist, and thereby, to take a first step in examining a theory of individual differences in resilience to self-image threat. This theory is derived from theories of self-evaluation (e.g., Greenberg, Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Rosenblatt, 1990; Tesser, 1988; Tesser & Cornell, 1991), most particularly from self-affirmation theory (Liu & Steele, 1986; Steele, 1988; Steele & Liu, 1983) and its postulation of a self system for maintaining a perception of global integrity, that is, of overall moral and adaptive adequacy (Spencer et al, in press). This theory assumes that the self-affirming, image-maintaining process is begun by anything that threatens this image, from the negative judgments of others to one's own behavior (e.g., a contradiction of one's values) and that it is carried out, through constant interpretations and reinterpretations of one's experience and the world, until that image is restored. It is a system of rationalization and selfjustification. And in doing these things, it can produce substantial shifts in attitude and even in behavior. It is important to